Down the Rabbit Hole
by Mystic25
Summary: Answer to the Challenge of Sam taking street drugs in "Born Again Identity." And what would happen if Dean found out. Spoilers ranging from "Born Again Identity" through "The Girl with the Dungeons and Dragons Tattoo."


"Down the Rabbit Hole"

Mystic25

Summary: Answer to the Challenge of Sam taking street drugs in "Born Again Identity." And what would happen if Dean found out. Spoilers ranging from "Born Again Identity" through "The Girl with the Dungeons and Dragons Tattoo."

Rating: T for language and "adult themes" and "suggestions" (you know, Sam and Dean)

A/N: Okay, Sam was desperate enough to go to a street dealer to take something to help him sleep. And they just _left_ it at that? I know that in the grand scheme of things it's not that big of an issue. But, I'm certain if it were ever broached with Dean, it sure as hell would be.

A/N #2: This is my **100th **story posted here! Yay! I'd like to thank all the writers, directors and actors I plagiarized from, I couldn't have done it without you…*wipes away tears and sniffs and does the light bulb wave*

* * *

**xxxxXxxx**

"_Pills? You do realize, you're just bringing free drugs to the party right?"_

~Lucifer

Supernatural: "The Bourne Again Identity"

"_If you drink much from a bottle marked 'poison' it is almost certain to disagree with you,_

_sooner or later_."

~Alice

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

**xxxxxXxxxx**

* * *

It has been a month and a little change since Sam has come out of the hospital with his sanity – threadbare and weakened, but still intact. He slept for the better part of that week after busting out, only getting up to half stumble to the bathroom, or to have Dean shove some sort of beverage or soup at him so he wouldn't waste away. And he barely remembered any of it. His body ate and drank, and pissed, but his mind had shut down, put up the 'closed' sign in the windows and crashed, pissed at him that he had fucked it over so much by refusing to shut off.

Finally after 8 days of this state, Sam is lucid enough to change out of overly stale sweat smelling clothes into clean ones. He shaves off the forest of a beard on his face, even though Dean argued that chicks might dig that rugged look. But when Sam's chin took back control over the out of control facial hairs, Dean had looked at him with a smirk of satisfaction. Like a stranger had been wearing his little brother's face all this time and had finally given it back. This was Sam, naked chin, girly hair and all.

Of course on the certainty of uncertainty that is their lives, both brothers have little time to bask full in the idea of Sam being _Sam_ again before they are thrown into a whirlwind of Japanese Drinking Spirits (complete with Garth sized sidekick) the unsettling trip to the Van Ness House, which ended with the equally unsettling torque-your-balls realization that Bobby's ghost had hung around to help them, but was turning slowly into a vengeful ghost – that was some deep shit they could barely touch. And finally their latest peach – stealing a huge slab of freakin' _mud_ with the aid of a Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter hugger of a woman techno geek.

The mud slab – which is what they were both calling it, or as Dean likes to refer to it in private: the 'huge pile of crap' is locked away in the weapons compartment of the Impala. They had made the stop to her 5 hours ago, and Dean had one of those 'wanting to make love like he just got out of jail' looks when he saw the sleek black body of his car. Sam had to haul Dean away after 10 minutes of this full on creepiness, and they were now currently holed up in one of their favorite non descript hotels.

Sam opens the door to the shower, steam billowing out as he padded over to his bed in a pair of gray sweat pants, and began looting around inside it for a clean shirt.

The sound of the door opening raised Sam's head from what he is doing, his right hand reflexively going for the gun stowed inside with the clothes. But he released his finger from the trigger when he caught the sight of his brother coming through the door with a paper bag full of food from the burger joint down the street, balancing two drinks in a cardboard drink caddy with his other hand.

"Need a hand?" Sam says seeing Dean doing his balancing act.

"I got it," Dean says in a garbled version of the words since he has now transferred the white bag to his mouth.

Sam moves over to help anyway, taking the bag dangling from Dean's mouth and setting it on the table.

Dean finally looks up from his juggling act and sees that Sam is only half dressed. "Geez, put a shirt on Heidi Kloom; the Victoria Secret Fashion show's not until fall."

"Shut up," Sam returns and takes the drinks out of the caddy, setting them beside each of the empty chairs before going back to his bag and sliding into a black t-shirt. His actions don't go without a slight wince.

His busted rib acquired from being slammed by that car had healed most likely a few weeks ago – he thinks most likely because he hasn't exactly been back for follow up x-rays. But ever since Van Ness had skewered his hand through his body and looted around inside like he was searching for change, Sam had been dealing with an annoying sore pain in that area.

His wince didn't go unnoticed by Dean. "You okay?"

"Yeah," Sam says, it's almost like a reflex.

"You sure?" Dean questions unwrapping his 'Big Mouth Burger' from its paper wrapping but ignoring it, just for a moment to gawk at his brother. "Cause you haven't really been okay okay since you went down the Rabbit Hole with Lucifer."

Sam absorbs these words. What with the sleeping off two weeks of insomnia, busted ribs, the insanity of Satan setting up camp inside his brain, then going from monster, to ghost hunt, to Leviathan _heist_ – this is the first normal conversation they have had with each other in a long time.

At least normal for them.

"Dude," Sam looks at Dean incredulously. "Alice In Wonderland reference? Seriously?"

"What?" Dean returns digging into his burger with his teeth. "I saw that movie. When she slayed the Jabberwocky?" He makes a noise of appreciation. "That was some hot ass sword play."

Sam in turn, made a noise of disbelief while simultaneously rolling his eyes at Dean. He eyed the collection of paper bags from the burger joint in spread out like bounty in front of his brother on the plastic table top. "Where's mine? All I see is your meat mountain."

"'S'its in the 'bag Sammy," Dean says around a mouth full of his burger. "I'm not touching your chick food."

Sam takes the empty chair across from Dean and pulls out the grilled chicken salad. He pops open the lid and douses the salad with the Italian dressing before closing the entire concoction and shaking the box to get the dressing to mix.

Dean gives him a raised eyebrow look, which continues as Sam reopens the plastic container and spears a piece of chicken and red leaf lettuce with his fork.

Sam chews and feels Dean's eyes on him the whole time. "What?"

Dean just rolls his eyes and throws out a deadpanned "Nothing," Sam is such a freaking girl. He takes a pull from the straw speared in his plastic Coke cup. "Really though, how are you doing? I mean I haven't really checked in on you a lot." Dean eyes Sam with all his 28 years of being an older brother.

"Checked in?" Sam returns, swallowing another bite of lettuce and a grape seed tomato. "What am I, eight?"

" Sam I mean it." Dean wipes his greasy hands on his napkin, to better grip is burger, but his eyes are all on Sam. " Three weeks ago you were a freakin' walking zombie. If you're not back on all four cylinders-"

"I'm fine Dean," Sam says swallowing another mouthful of salad. Dean was still watching him in that way he watched him when he was a kid and was trying to hide an illness so he wouldn't miss school. Or now you know, start seeing Satan again. "Seriously man I'm good. I think 45 hours of sleep was more than therapeutic."

"Yeah, but you gotta remember, you were working on 60 hours of empty," Dean reminded. He had put his burger down, and his arm was inches from the inside of Sam's elbow, like he was itching to grip it. Sam had been a wreck for almost two weeks, Dean isn't just going to accept that his brother could eat and dress himself when it had just mere weeks ago when Sam had been an insomniac from hell induced PTSD, been hit by a car, been locked up and electrocuted, and touched by an Angel in what looked like a bitching painful experience.

"Man, I told you I'm okay," Sam says again, chugging a sip from his water bottle. "Stop orbiting."

"Shaddup" Dean's arm moves further away from Sam's elbow, because if Sam can bitch, then he wasn't that bad off. But he didn't move his hand off the table entirely.

They each go back to their food, and both finish all of their respective dinners, tossing away their empty wrappers and containers in one big pile on the table's center.

Dean pulls back against the chair back with a sigh. Even though it's fast food, and he's goinh to be hungry in about 3 hours again, he's going to enjoy the full feeling he was experiencing right now. Sam is mimicking his brother's posture, which was to say _bad_ posture. But hey if they could die like 500 times and save the world from the Apocalypse then fate owed them one on bad backs and disc herniations.

But after a few minutes of this, Dean remains in this slouched position, while Sam has pulled back up, one long arm going across his chest with a wince.

Dean doen't sit up from his laid back position, but he did eye Sam in concern. "Okay seriously Sam, enough with the crap, you're ribs should be good by now." He knew from personal experience that cracked ribs hurt like a bitch, but they didn't take a full month to heal. "Van Ness did something when he tore into your gut didn't he?"

"It was only for a few seconds Dean," Sam argues, which doesn't hold much merit by the way that he's holding an arm across his chest. He doesn't say he's fine though, because he's a little too sore to lie and say that it was fine. "It's not a big deal." He winces again around trying to take a deep breath.

"Yeah you always make your Ultimate Bitch face when it's not a big deal," Dean says, dropping his feet back to the floor and standing up. "I knew we should've just gotten you checked out at the hospital when Creepy McCreeperson decided to feel you up."

"You did not," Sam retaliates. "You thought the same thing I did, no ER in hell would buy that I got a ghost's hand shoved up my gut and that's how I reinjured myself."

"Okay fine, but I should have!" Dean argument is dying out, but he's trying to fan it. He moves over to where Sam has laid his duffle bag.

Sam eyes him from where he's hunched over in the chair, one arm bracing his corporally reinjured ribs. He sees Dean looting through his red back pack. "What are you doing?"

"I know the Looney Tunes Bin hooked you up with pain meds Sam. And you're going to damn well take them. I'm tired of watching you flinch every time you breathe."

"Dean those were antipsychotropic's shot directly into my veins," Sam says, skin already starting to itch at the memory of needles shooting into his veins, taking pill after pill of those downers and mood changers and having it do _nothing_. All to the tune of Lucifer playing "Old Man River" on a banjo. "And we kinda busted out there remember? It's not like I got sent home with a written prescription for Vicodin as we were making our escape."

"Shut up Sam," Dean says still looting around inside his brother's bag. "I know you got something in here. You injure yourself like a hundred times a day." Dean pulls his hand out when he finds a bottle of spray on cologne. He eyes his brother, waving the black canister at him "_Axe Phoenix _Sam, _really?"_ Dean uncaps the canister and sniffs it, making a face at the thick scent. "You know that girls don't _actually _gravitate to you with this stuff like in the commercials?"

"I had it on with Annie, she didn't exactly complain." Sam throws out, eyebrows going up in a raise. He may have been a dick at that time, and a soulless dick at that. But, Annie, she was still a good memory, a _really_ good memory, the soft sweet kind of really good memory. He hoped that she was in heaven, because she was a hell of a woman.

Dean feels the stinging effect of that silence, growling a bit, because that's what Sam had been going for. "That's still an uncomfortable topic Sam," He turns away at the smug look on Sam's face. Sleeping with the same woman as his little brother – yeah, awkward.

Dean's hand finally closes on something hard and plastic and bottle shaped. His hand emerges with an orange prescription bottle. "Motrin 600." He reads the label, a big disgustedly at the non narcotic medication. Something filled on one of the times they went to the hospital for one their injuries, the name on the bottle reads: _'Peter F. Rapkin_' one of Dean's better though of aliases for his brother. "Okay, this is not exactly the good stuff, but it's still better than you hugging yourself."

Dean shakes two of the pills and turns to walk back over to Sam. He bumps into the desk chair, that really served no purpose, because there was no _damn desk_ in this motel. But it did knock Sam's jacket onto the floor. Dean bent down to retrieve it, and sees something fall out of the pocket.

A plastic bag, the small kind. At first Dean wonders why the hell Sam had taken to carrying around plastic bags in his pockets. But then he sees two circular red pills in the corner of the bag. Someone had smoothed out the manufactory's markings on the pills and had scratched tiny '_R'_ 's into the surface.

Dean feels the oddest sensation, It's in three parts: one part, confusion, one part more confusion, and one part '_what the fucking crap?'_ He palmed the baggie and walked the rest of the way back to Sam.

"Alright here ya go," Dean loses whatever smart ass quip he was going to say when he hannds Sam his meds.

Sam sits up with a grimace. "Thanks," He takes the pills from Dean and swallows them with a pull off his bottled water without protest. His ribs were actually starting to really annoy him, and despite his earlier bitchiness, he appreciated his brother's gesture.

When Sam chases down his last swallow of water with more water, he still sees Dean standing up over him. "You alright?" he asks, his brows knit down. Dean is never the 'silent hover type'. He's very vocal when he hovers. Something is off. "Dean, what?"

"There something you wanna tell me?" Dean said. He has no idea how to start this conversation. Hell, talking about Sam's demon binge drinking, and Lucifer being the cause of his insomnia had been easier than this.

"Tell you about what?" Sam returns. Dean's eyes – they are alternating from being hard, to being concerned, to being angry. Sam can see it. "Seriously dude, what is it?" Sam turned in his chair to face Dean with a bit of a wince.

"Why don't you answer that question for me?" Dean holds up the plastic baggie in front of Sam.

The room goes completely silent, so much so that the sounds of water flowing in the pipes from the shower in the next room could be heard.

Sam sees the bag of little red pills in front of his face. The ones he has forgotten to remove from his jacket pocket.

**[**_**" **__Guh…I just need some rest…"_

_The skinny man with the hollow eyes watches him, watches him go down on his haunches, tearing at his hair, feeling his head rattle like a broken thing. His vision is so fuzzy he can barely see, he closes his eyes, but it doesn't help._

"_Sammy," Lucifer's voice is right by his ear. "Wakey wakey bestest friend, the slumber party's just getting good."_

"_Hey, you wanna knock out…I can knock you out…" the kid pulls a baggie from his pocket, 10 red pills inside it like foreign currency._

_Sam clamors up to his knees, he almost falls. He tries again. He can't even remember what he was standing up for until the bag dances in front of him. "You sure this will take me out?"He eyes the pills hungrily, he's so damn tired, so damn beyond tired. He can't take this fucking shit any more. _

_The guy snorts. "Like a hurricane, it's my best line."_

_Sam doesn't need to hear anymore. He throws a wad of money at the kid._

_The guy smiles, rolling up the wad of twenties and tucking them away into his jacket pocket."Follow me to the land of Wonderland man."_**]**

Sam swallows, he looks at the bag, then up at his brother. "Dean-"

"What the hell Sam?" Dean's voice is thunderous. He shakes the bag, and the two pills inside dance around like jumping beans.

Sam swallows again, the gesture is so like that kids that night. But it stops at the bag shaking. It's not some strung out junkie dealer dangling the bag in front of Sam anymore, it's Dean. "Dean, it's not what you think-"

"You take these?" Dean shook the bag in front of Sam's face, his voice an angry growl.

"Yeah I did-" Sam answers.

"How many?" Dean cuts him off like a car on the freeway. His voice is quiet, too quiet. He could break glass with his stare. "How many Sam?"

"Three," Sam says.

"_Three?"_ Dean mouths like he's just swallowed something nasty and chunky. He turn his head away, then back. "Then how the fuck isn't it what I think?" Dean snaps back. "Huh?" He circles Sam's chair. "After all the shit you've been through Sam; you're adding fucking _roofies_ to the party? Dude you have _any_ idea how messed up that is?" Dean's voice rises. It is now booming, angry. Sam wasn't some teenage punk, he is freakin' 29, he is a hunter, he is Dean's brother, he is goddamn _smarter_ than this.

"It was right before I got into that accident. After we had those beers-" The words tumbled out of Sam. "I just wanted to sleep Dean," Sam says, his voice low but earnest. "That's all. Lucifer wasn't shutting up, and I was climbing the walls. After you passed out, I tried freakin' _everything_ to fall asleep. Even tried occluding my damn own carotid, but it wasn't working-"

"Let's fast forward to the part where you went scouting out a Tweaker for some date rape drugs Sam!" Dean snarls. He doesn't know how to deal with this. You're suppose to have the 'don't do drugs talk' with your kid brother when he's 16, _not _ fucking 29. And when Dean can't deal, he gets angry. "Do you know how fucking dangerous it is to pop pills from an off the map pharmacy?"

"Like what we everyday do is like a bundle of safety Dean?" Sam retaliates. Sam shouldn't be yelling at Dean, but he can't help it. Three weeks ago is still to fresh in his head, three weeks ago where he was loosing his mind.

Dean points a finger at him. "Don't change the subject!-"

"I just wanted to _sleep_ Dean, okay!" Sam repeated again. He winces as his screaming pulled on his ribs. His voice goes quiet, like he's afraid to admit this out loud, because it could be labeled as 'weakness' "Dean you gotta understand."

"And why am I supposed to do that?" Dean snaps back.

"Because you're my brother!" Sam says, like it explains it all, and with them it normally does.

"No that just gives me leeway to kick your ass when you do stupid shit like this!" Dean starts to pull away from the table because he wants to throw things, like that damn chair. But he can't do that, because Sam is sitting in it. The idiot was sitting in the chair he wants to throw.

"Dean-" Sam catches Dean's arm on his half turn around the table. "Do you know what it's like to feel your hair fall out, see your nails flake off, not remember what happened five minutes ago?" Sam's voice is low, but fierce. Trying to get Dean to see the why behind his crazy. _"All _ because you can't sleep-"

"Sam-"

"Dean I was desperate! Okay! I didn't know what else to do!" Sam both screams and grabs at his ribs because screaming had overworked the sore muscle.

"How about _talking_ to me?" Dean came back. "How about letting me _help _you?"

"And say _what?_ " Sam said, standing up with the force of his anger. He stared down at his brother, with all the emotions that this shit has brought back. "That Lucifer was riding my ass every fucking minute and it made me desperate enough to go score something off the street just to get a few minutes of peace? What could you have told me that would make that any better?"

Dean rears back, biting at his lip, his breath in short bursts. "Damnit Sam!" He slams both fists hard on the plastic tabletop. It doesn't turn over, but it does cause the surface to wobble and spill some of their plastic wrappers onto the ground. He swipes at his face and breathes out a pause. Then he pulls his right arm and aims it hard at Sam's jaw.

Sam feels the snap where Dean's fist connected with his face, hears the pop of his neck, feels the warmth of blood slowly trickling down the corner of his mouth. He grabs at the throbbing. Heart pounding in his ears from Dean having just punched him in the face. But he doesn't hit him back. He breathes out a painful breath. "You feel better now?"

"No-" Dean took a swipe at his heads with his hands, feeling his knuckles burn from the force of the punch he dealt. He watches Sam spit a trickle of blood out of his mouth onto the floor. "God damnit Sammy-"

"You already said that," Sam says voice lighter, attempting to make a half attempt at a joke. But it peters out when Dean turns to him, jaw set, eyes dead on him.

Sam cradles his aching jaw. "Look Dean, I just wanted to rest-" he breathes out a long breath, because it has only been a month, it was still so fresh. "I was tired man alright? I was so. damn. _tired _– and I just wanted to sleep-" Sam's eyes flicker away from Dean and too Dean, and away, darting back forth, like he was afraid to admit this and look Dean in the eye. "And I know it was fucked up man-"

"It wasn't fucked up Sam," Dean interrupts. There's a look they both share at this tiny quiet declaration from Dean. They feel the effects of such a word like they both feel the effects of that punch.

Dean takes a step towards his brother "It was stupid, but it wasn't fucked up." he says this like an exhausted sigh, like his adrenaline from earlier was wearing off leaving him in the aftershock. Like he was tired of being angry. "Being that tired makes you do some crazy shit." Dean huffs out a dry laugh.

Sam joins the huffed bit of laughter that Dean has started, surprised that either of them can laugh about this. "You're telling me."

Dean dropped into the empty chair across from Sam, taking the time to rest his arms on the tabletop before speaking again. "Getting that call about you in the hospital - You scared me Sammy. I didn't know if you were-" Dean broke off, unable to say the end of that remark because it had wanted to be the end of Sam. He breathes hard in that pause "And then seeing you in that place - _That_ was fucked up man," he laughs another dry laugh, solo this time. "Even more so than your prequel down the rabbit hole into roofie land."

"You really loved that movie didn't you?" Sam says of the second reference Dean has used on Alice in Wonderland, knowing full well that Dean had never read that book.

"Yeah well next time don't give me a reason to _use_ those references Sam," Dean says leaning over the table, elbows resting on the surface to stare at his brother. He watches Sam reclaim his seat, bare feet crunching in the tumbled over garbage scraps of their dinner containers.

"I'll make sure Lucifer gets the memo." Sam says.

"I'm serious Sam," Dean says and it stops Sam's next remark from forming, his younger brother's mouth opening and closing like a dying fish.

Sam looks at Dean, almost like the kid he once was when got caught playing with Dean's army men, or trying to borrow his favorite shirts without asking. But he wasn't that kid any more, and neither was Dean. They are little too fucked up to be kids again.

But they are still brothers.

"I know you are," Sam says. "But Dean look at me, alright? I'm okay. It's over." He snatches the baggie lying on the table across from Dean and smashes the pills in it with his fist. He slides the now bag of powder over to Dean.

Dean fingers the baggie. "How do I know you're not just gonna snort that now?"

Sam snorts, but it's in the form of a laugh. He stands up and goes to bureau behind them and uncaps the bottle of Southern Comfort sitting there, pouring the dark liquid into two clean glasses.

Dean watches him as Sam hands him one of the glasses, seeing Sam fall back into his chair with a groan, pressing a cup of ice to his busted lip.

"How's my aim?" Dean asks.

"Dead on, dick." Sam says around the ice pressed to his face.

"Yeah well bob and weave next time kid." Dean tilts his glass towards him and sniffing the heady aroma of the liquor. He eyes the half full high ball of alcohol in front of his brother."Since when do you drink whiskey?"

"Since Satan kept me up for a week." Sam says angling his glass towards Dean.

Dean just gives him a look of understanding that only comes from being them. He clinks his glass against Sam's.

With one hand still pressing the cup of ice to his pulsating jaw, Sam drinks from his glass, watching Dean do the same The whiskey burns and he scrunches his face from the aftershock, but it's warm going down, and coats his stomach better than any medicine.

He feels Dean watching him as well.

* * *

**xxxxxXxxxx**

"M'serious," Sam says, playing with the rim of his glass. "She totally had a thing for you man."

Dean blows him off. "You're a little off your base there Sam. Charlie was totally wanting to break into your hard drive. Lesibain thing aside, you practically had a hand in her pants with all that Harry Potter crap." Dean grabs another swallow of his whiskey. "Seriously dude, _Hermione?_ You're suck a freakin' nerd."

"Dude, you've ever _seen_ Emma Watson?" Sam says, concentrating on getting the bottle cap resting on his thumb nail to flip over into his empty glass. "You'd hit that in a second and you know it-"

"She's British S'mmy," Dean slurs a bit because they were halfway through the bottle of the whiskey and Sam was working his way through their six pack of beer, playing a mini version of basketball with the caps of the empty bottles and his glass as the basket. "Probably all stuck up and likes tea."

"Who's your love then Dean? The Impala?" Sam says, closing one eye, to check his aim. "Ain't enough lube'n latex for that-"

"Shut your face Sam!" Dean huffs out. "Baby's good, she takes care of me." He drinks from his glass, then slams it back down. "Naw man, s'riously, I'd go with Annie-"

"Yeah," Sam agrees, without any awkwardness from before because he was a little too loose from alcohol to be uptight. "But I think we both already kinda, did." Yeah he wasn't awkward about this anymore, he was too drunk to be awkward. He raises his glass "To Annie."

"Hell yeah," Dean agrees. "Hell of a hunter."

"Hell of a woman." Sam swallows and sets his glass back down. He then checks his trajectory once more before letting go. The '_clink'_ of the bottle cap hitting the glass, has Sam turning up to Dean with a look of drunken smugness.

Sam pours some of his beer into Dean's glass, mixing it with the whiskey that was already there. "Drink up bitch."

Dean makes a face. "That's disgusting dude-"

"Yeah and y'lost, so grow a pair-" Sam returns, waiting with a tilt of his head.

_Dumb ass._ Dean picks up his glass and slams the concoction back in one go. He makes a face like a shaking dog. "Gah."

"Y'okay Dean?" Sam laughs his drunk laugh. He had been drunk since round two of their whiskey. But it's not like they were going anywhere, except to fall into bed when dawn comes creeping out. So what did it matter?

Dean uncaps the bottle again sloshes some whiskey into Sam glass. He picks up his glass, and watches his brother make a face at the combined smell of whiskey and Yingling. "Your turn princess."

Sam eyes his drink like it's alive and wants to eat him. But he throws back his drink in one go, slamming the glass back down, face puckering, just like Dean did with his drink mixture.

"That's my boy," Dean says proudly, slapping a hand down on the table at Sam not vomiting up that nasty tasting shit. "Feel'em turning to brass."

Sam coughs. "'Can bang out a tune on them soon." He coughs again.

"Damn right," Dean says then he laughs at the look on Sam's face. "You'kay there Sammy?" Sam was a brick house of muscle and strength, but he was lightweight as ballerina when it came to alcohol.

"M'fine." Sam laughs, swallowing down the last bit of aftertaste sting. "Always and never," he holds his glass up again, watching Dean dole out the last bits of whiskey into his glass.

"Man we should do this more," Sam says swirling around his glass like it's a brandy snifter.

"What?" Dean says. "Get drunk after you pop Red Robins?"

"Why not?" Sam says back, finally stopping swirling and takes another drink. "Kinda feels like we earned it ya know? All the thingies we saw-"

"All the thingies we do-" Dean adds pointing at him with the hand holding his high ball glass.

"Exactly," Sam says. "We deserve drunk."

"We deserve _lots_ of drunk." Dean agrees.

"Like the way you drunk think," Sam says.

"Kinda my specialtiy." Dean says back.

"S'why you're the big brother," Sam slurs, and in some part of his drunken mind, that shit actually makes sense.

Dean just gives him a drunken version of his agreement face."Amen to that." Dean salutes that with the end of his glass, the truth of it burning his throat with his next last of whiskey.

Sam stares at his glass and makes a really sloppy version of his bitch face. "M' gonna to hate myself in the morning for this 'rnt I?" he swallows the last of his drink.

"You got that right," Dean says, "But y'earned it man." he slaps Sam on the shoulder. He eyes the drying blood trail on Sam's lip.

Sam watches his brother watching him. "S'rry bout popping pills and seeing Satan." Sam apologizes.

"S'okay," Dean says in a shrug. "S'rry bout rearranging your jaw."

"S'good," Sam blows it off, touching the sore jaw with a wince. "Y'punch like a girl anywy."

"Sh'tup S'mmy." Dean growls.

This time Dean holds his glass out, and Sam doesn't hesitate it to clink it against his, even though his is empty. Sam's cheeks now have great color, instead of being drawn and pale from earlier. Okay, it is from the alcohol, and he knows that Sam is about to pass out because he went over his limit hours ago But seeing his brother in that locked down ward, strung out on insomnia, body and mind slowly dying, then seeing his desperation spill out again, in the form of little red pills –

Dean will take this getting drunk with him, because it is rough and stupid, and _normal._ Because it is Sam whole again, right where he belongs – next to him.

"Think I'm drunk," Sam slumps in his chair, playing with the dregs of his shot glass. He knows he is drunk, like shit assed, stone blind, who the the hell did I marry, drunk. And he knows that even though Dean is the same kind of drunk too, he will still give him hell about this tomorrow, offering him a breakfast of liquid grease and fried pork. But right he doesn't give a shit.

"Yeah you are," Dean slaps a hand on his brother's shoulder again, roughing it up under his hand. "Drunk is good Sammy, _crack_ is whack." He laughs at his brilliance for a moment and stands and steadies himself before he grabs a hold of Sam's arm and hauls him to his feet. Dean is already bracing himself for the extra weight because he knows that Sam's legs will wobble like a newborn colt cause he's drunker than he is.

Sam rolls his eyes. "Man, y'r stupid."

"Dude, m'awesome, don't you forget it." Dean tugs his brother over to the nearest bed and dumps him there, pulling his long legs up on the mattress.

Sam flops on his stomach as Dean tugs off his shoes, before he remembers that Sam is barefoot and he's just really pulling at his feet. Sam squirms because he was always ticklish there and mumbles: "Quit it."

Dean leaves him and grabs some ice from the little freezer. He comes back and shoves a piece of ice into Sam lip for him to suck on to get the swelling down.

"Thanks." Sam's words are blown out into the pillow as he brings his arms up on either side of him.

"No chick moments S'm we're too drunk." Dean says.

"Prude." Sam slurs, eyes closing.

He watches as Sam turns again once more, before finally passing out. Dean stumbles over to the table and grabs the little bag of crushed pills and dumps them into the wastebasket in the bathroom. He snags his lighter from his duffel lights a bit of newspaper and throws it into the same basket. He watches the fire burn up the last bits of the drugs, before walking back out to the beds.

Dean sits down heavily on the corner of the bed that hasn't been taken up by Sam's long giraffe legs.

He swipes at his tired eyes. They're both going to have bitching hangovers in the morning, but it isn't morning yet. It's right now. It's no drugs, no Satan hallucinations, no watching your brother's candle fade, right freakin' now.

His hand rests for the briefest of moments on Sam's back, and he feels the rise and fall of him breathing.

"You're welcome."

* * *

**xxxxXxxxx**

**End.**

This wound up being a conglomeration of several episodes, because they were all so good. Being a Harry Potter freak myself, I couldn't just leave out the greatness of Charlie.

And Dean, yeah he'd be pissed at Sam for taking pills, but it's deeper than that. It's about what comes after.

And that's my 100th tale guys.

Hope you liked.

Mystic


End file.
